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Sunday, March 1, 2015

BROKEN WINDOW ~ NEW YORK CITY 1984

by Dorothy H. Hayes

New York City was still suffering from an economic crisis in
1984, which is the time period that Broken
Window takes place. It was not the city we enjoy today. The title, Broken Window, is itself historical; it
reflects a type of crime that is nonviolent but a result of the lowering of
police presence of the times. People were arrested, for example, smoking pot on
the street, speaking too loudly, selling items without a license. It was said
that such crimes were like a broken window that allowed vermin into an
otherwise sound house. Some argued, at the time, however, the police should
focus on real crime; the muggings, killings
and kidnapping that were taking place in the city. That arresting people for
“broken window” crimes was abusive.

That argument still stands today.

The neglected, failing subway trains, of the times, were
relics of themselves, unreliable often leaving passengers waiting at subway
stops for forty minutes or more. Ten thousand police officers were taken off
the street and there were not enough officers riding the trains to protect
passengers from gangs that openly roamed and threatened passengers for pocket
money with weapons like screwdrivers and knives. It was the year that Bernie
Goetz shot four black youths who had threatened to mug him.

Talk show hosts joked about people getting mugged. “When was
the last time you were mugged?” was a typical one-liner.

The Crips a street gang, which is the prominent gang in Broken Window, began to sell drugs in
NYC, and Queens. The Crips, basically a Los Angeles gang, were known to abduct beautiful
girls, which acted for an aspiring member as initiation. The gangs then passed
her around or sold her. Such criminal events still happen to day and were an
inspiration for me to write Broken Window.
Also inspiring me were the three courageous girls in Cleveland held captive for
ten years, and the revelations of human trafficking in this country of our
young, mentioned by Attorney General Eric Holder. He pointed to the tens of
thousands of young who have run away from home and are left defenseless on the
streets, and are exploited. That was also the case in 1984.

The graffiti marred subway station and trains became a
symbol of New York City’s decline. They were unrecognizable and more like crime
scenes. So when my character, Kelly Singleton, a young beautiful girl about to
become a freshman at NYU disappears on the Number Six Train, in August 1984, it
is totally believable.

The New York City subway was dangerous, the parents told the
three Wilton High School graduates, but the girls weren’t taking no for an
answer. Kelly Singleton, soon to be an NYU freshman, and her two friends board
the hazardous subway train. Several stops later, her two friends get off, but
Kelly is nowhere to be found. It is the torrid August of 1984, and crime
is at an all-time high. Kelly’s desperate parents turn to reporter Carol Rossi
and police detective Jerry Stevenson to find their missing daughter.

“From the first sentence to the last, Dorothy Hayes takes you
on a pulse-pounding journey into the heart of darkness … With flowing prose
that won’t let go, impeccable research, and characters that breathe life on the
page, do not miss Broken Window.”

--Racine Hiet, author,
Stanley Park: A Novel; radio host, Party 934;

and
publisher/editor, Thrive in Life Magazine

“Hayes captures the danger of New York City in the 1980s and
the nightmare of a girl gone missing … This suspenseful story rings so true, I
couldn’t put it down.”

“Wow, another great book! … Hayes continues the fast-moving
mystery thriller technique of Murder at the P&Z as we follow Rossi in her
search for a missing 18-year-old girl in New York City.”

--Frank Hoffman,
Co-founder, All-Creatures.org

“Over her head, professionally
and romantically.”

Scratch
the surface of a small town planning and zoning department, and you’ll uncover
a story. That’s what Carol Rossi counts on in the winter of 1983, and she’s
right. A former teacher, age 47 and romantically involved with a much younger
police officer, she needs a big story to make a success of her new career as a
reporter for a Wilton, Connecticut, weekly newspaper, but murder isn’t what she
had in mind. When the victim turns out to be a woman on Rossi’s beat, writing a
story no longer seems enough, and she vows to find the killer. Stalked and
terrorized, Rossi soon finds herself in over her head, professionally and
romantically.

Published by Mainly Murder Press:
February 17, 2013

Broken Window, another Carol
Rossi mystery, will be published in the spring.

Dorothy Hayes, a staff writer for local Connecticut newspapers for five years,
received and honorary award for her in-depth series on Vietnam Veterans from
the Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to that she was a Language Arts teacher. A staff writer for
a national animal protection organization, for six years, she wrote Animal Instinct, 2006. Dorothy lives in
Stamford, CT with her husband, Arthur. She also raised four children, and is
the mother-in-law to three, grandmother to fourteen, and is GN to Bella. She
writes for WomenofMystery.Net, CriminalElement.Com, and is a member of
Sisters-in-Crime-Tri-State Chapter, and Mystery Writers of American. Visit her
at DorothyHayes.com for more information.

Dorothy began her writing experience as a staff writer for the Connecticut
newspaper, The Wilton Bulletin. After three years she moved on to the
larger regional daily newspaper, The Hour in Norwalk. During her
tenure at this paper, she received an honorary award for her
in-depth series on Vietnam Veterans from the Connecticut chapter of the Society
of Professional Journalists.
Following her time at The Hour, she held the position of staff
writer for a national animal protection organization for six years. In this
role she was engaged in lobbying efforts at the state capital on behalf of
animal protection and local and national campaigns for the advancement of animal
rights.